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'US, Delta and Pineland have filed for T-gene patent'

Gene Campaign convenor Suman Sahai has claimed that the United States government and Delta and Pineland company have already filed a patent application for the controversial terminator gene in India.

Addressing newspersons in New Delhi on Monday, Sahai said the terminator technology has been licensed to Monsanto, a company which is in the eye of the storm for conducting its genetically engineered cotton trials in India.

According to her, if the amended patent act comes into being, there would be no stopping the terminator gene patent from being operative in India.

As it is, with an exclusive marketing rights agreement signed by the World Trade Organisation members, the terminator gene under an American patent would receive the automatic right to be marketed and used in India, she said.

Worse, in the changed patent regime, the terminator patent would ultimately be granted in India since the patent application is already in the mailbox, a facility created by the Patent Amendment Ordinance of 1995.

Sahai said political parties must recognise the long-term devastation that could be brought upon India's food and health security if a patent regime was brought in that would erode the country's control over agriculture and seed production on the one hand and cost effective manufacture of drugs on the other.

UNI

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